Stephanie blinked awake, looking around with bemusement. The pale morning light coming through the canvas of the tent told her that it was past dawn, but she knew that it was still early yet.
There was still a heavy warm weight leaning against her back, and she could feel Noah's breath tickle the hair behind her ears. It made her smile, and for a moment, she simply lay in place, feeling all these sensations with her eyes closed. It felt so good to lie in one place, to assume for a time that her every decision wasn't a matter of life and death.
Moving slowly so that she didn't disturb her lover, she twisted around in Noah's embrace until she was facing his sleeping face. In the light, she realized now that his hair was a gorgeous gold. It fell slightly past his shoulders, and when she stroked it lightly, he purred in his sleep. Enchanted, she twisted a few slippery strands between her fingers, letting it coil away when she loosened her grip. She had felt how soft his hair was last night, but this was the first time she really registered satiny silkiness of it.
She blinked when she realized that for all his stillness, Noah was watching her through half-lidded eyes. In the light of day, she could see that his eyes were a peculiar shade of light brown, so light in fact that they looked like honey.
"Oh, but you're beautiful," she whispered, and he chuckled a little.
"That's encouraging," he said. "How are you feeling this morning."
"Good," Stephanie said with a grin. "Better than I ever have. And thank you for that..."
She knew what needed to come next. No matter how much joy they had had of each other, she needed to return to camp. She had a job to do, and the sooner she got to it, the better it would be for all. However, she was so at peace lying naked on the cot with Noah by her side that she was loathe to rise. She simply felt so content, folded in his arms, basking in the warmth of his honey smile.
Noah seemed to sense her thoughts. Instead of getting up, however, he looped one arm around her and buried his face in her hair. The act struck her as primal, and she remembered how he had tasted her everywhere last night. There was something proprietary about the way he nuzzled her, and she blushed a little before pushing at him.
"I really should be getting back, though," she said, honest regret in her voice. "I have so much work to do, and today we might be going until we drop..."
Noah certainly heard her, but for the moment, he didn't look as if he were paying any attention at all.
"It can wait, it can all wait," he murmured, his mouth dropping down to her collarbones. "It can wait for the esteemed doctor for just a little bit, can't it?"
Stephanie gasped softly as his mouth dropped down to her pert breasts.
"Oh god..."
"A few hours won't make a huge difference at all," he coaxed. "Enough time to lie in bed with me for a bit, for me to feed you... those are worthwhile activities, aren't they?"
Damn him, but he was making as good a case with his touch as he was with his words. Everywhere he touched her, whether it was with his hand, his thighs, his slowly stiffening member or his mouth, she felt a resurgence of that fire that he had lit the night before. He was branding her body with need, and right now, that was all she cared about.
"Noah..." She meant to scold, but his name came out as a long and drawn-out sigh instead.
"Shush, let me handle things for a little while," he murmured. "I will make you feel so good, so good..."
Stephanie wasn't sure what enchantment came over her when she gave in to his soft words and even softer touch. She needed what he was offering her, and if that meant that she shut the world out for a little bit, perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing, was it?
She was about to be well and truly lost to his desire when Noah, who had pushed himself over her, froze.
She watched in awe as a man who was nothing but lazy sensuality turn into some sort of war machine.
"Noah..."
"Shush," he said, sliding off her. His feet hit the ground nearly soundlessly, but he didn't reach for his clothes at all. She wondered what in the world it was, but then she heard it too. There was a scuffling outside, something that was too large to be the scavengers, rodents, or monkeys that sometimes came in and trashed unwary camps.
Noah's face was locked in a mask of cold fury and betrayal, and suddenly, there wasn't a man standing there but instead an enormous gold lion. Stephanie inhaled a sharp breath. The reality was too much. She thought that she would faint dead away. It couldn’t be happening, it was too unbelievable, and then the lion roared with rage, making the entire tent echo with its fury. In a matter of moments, the ferocious animal tore its way out of the tent as if the canvas was butter, raging into the clearing to destroy whatever foe was trespassing into its territory.
My god, he's so beautiful, Stephanie thought, and then reality reasserted itself. People didn't turn into lions. Noah isn't a lion. What the hell was going on?
As she watched, the lion stared around the clearing, tensed and furious. She could see how he longed to fight, how the claws on his forepaws rolled out of their sheathes reflexively. Stephanie guessed that the lion's head would be level with her shoulder if she stood up.
Suddenly, the lion's body language relaxed, and Stephanie could see beyond him to figure out what had set off that primal display.
Over the lion's shoulder, she could see a tall man with dark hair, dressed in the khaki outfit that so many men in the bush wore. Despite the enormous predator currently staring him down, the man looked unimpressed, even a little amused.
"I think this is a bit much, don't you? I was just trying to score some breakfast."
For a moment, Stephanie was sure that real life was about to reassert itself. This man was going to die as an enormous lion mauled him, and then the lion would turn around and maul her to death as well. As she died, she would wonder what the hell had happened to Noah. All of this flashed through Stephanie's mind in a split-second, and then the lion snorted, a deep and irritated sound.
The lion seemed to shrink down inside itself, and then there was Noah, standing naked, golden and unashamed in the early morning sunlight. Stephanie stared at him, and even as her brain tried to put together what it had seen, it occurred to her that there really was something stunningly beautiful about this man, something otherworldly, something perfect.
Then she realized that her first impulse had been right after all, and she lurched to her feet, pointing a shaking finger at him.
"You... you were a lion!" she said, her voice deeply shocked. "What the hell? You were a lion!"
In nearly any other circumstances, the look of chagrin on Noah's face might have been funny. He winced a little, and then he frowned slightly at her. She had no idea what was going on until he stepped forward, ignoring the wreckage of his tent. He folded her in his arms, and for a moment, she was so stunned and confused that she allowed him to do so. Then, she pushed him away, still shaking, her eyes wide.
I might be going into shock, a cold and clinical voice announced in her head, but she ignored it.
"You... are you a witch?" she demanded. "I've been in Tanzania for six years, and... and... they've always told tales of witches that could take on animal forms, god, I never believed them but this, what else could you be...?"
Her voice was high and thin. She felt as if she were spinning through space, pin wheeling back and forth as what had happened set in deeper. There was no telling how far she might have fallen if Noah hadn't stepped forward, pulling her into his arms. She might have fought him again, but this time she was so shaken that she merely allowed it.
"Oh god," she whimpered, and he stroked her hair gently.
"Like Adam and Eve," she said after a moment, and he pulled back slightly to look at her. From the look of concern on his face, she guessed he was worried that she had cracked under the pressure. She struggled to get a better grip on it.
"Like in the Bible," she said with a soft giggle. "We're naked together, and it's so beautiful here in Eden."
She took several deep breaths and pushed him away. In the back of her mind, there was still a dark-haired younger man somewhere behind Noah, but it mattered less than this.
"All right, whatever just happened, I want an explanation," she said presently.
For a moment, Noah simply stared at her, and then he laughed, the sound as golden and round as she remembered it. He shook his head, and reached for a blanket that had slid off the cot.
"You deserve an explanation," he said, "but first put this on. I don't want this fool getting more of an eyeful than he already has."
He gestured back to the man that had set off all the ruckus. In the middle of all this, he had simply dug into the supplies and pulled out some rations to chew on while they got things settled. When he turned towards her, she could see that his eyes were bright and curious, friendly despite their strange circumstances.
"Best do as he says," the stranger agreed. "He's the one in charge after all."
*
It was earlier than Stephanie had thought it was. She decided that she had time to sit and eat with the odd duo before anyone noticed that she was missing from camp, but more importantly, she wanted her explanation.
When both she and Noah were clothed at last, they sat at the cold fire pit with the man who introduced himself as Marcus. As they ate their rations, Noah explained.
"You've seen something that you were not meant to have seen," he said, and there was a peculiar heaviness to his tone. "Your kind aren't meant to know that there are shifters in the world."
"My kind?" she echoed. "I'm a human. Are you telling me that you're not?"
Noah and Marcus exchanged a look that she couldn't read, and Noah shrugged.
"We don't know," he said. "All we know is that we are shifters. We are people who change at will into animals. There are not many of us, and so far as our histories have it, we have always walked beside you, though on a more moonlit path rather than sunlit."
Stephanie's mind whirled. The scope of history and secrecy that he was talking about was monumental.
"But how can that be? I know people, and I know how good they are at keeping secrets. Surely something like this should have slipped through the cracks. Are you telling me that there's some kind of... kind of conspiracy that is keeping you all a secret?"
Noah scowled, and she wondered if she had touched on a sensitive spot.
"There are measures that are taken to keep us secret and safe," he said, his tone heavy. "Believe me, Stephanie, when I say that we have no interest in spending our lives locked in cages as scientists trying to figure out what makes us what we are. We have advanced and progressed just as you have, and we have ways of keeping ourselves secret."
"He means mind wipes," Marcus said, a little too cheerfully for Stephanie's taste. "If you are not one of us, or if you do not work for the Council, there's a good chance that you stand to have your memory wiped. It's a mostly simple procedure, but it is not without its risks. Some of the people the mind wipe is performed upon are never the same..."
Noah made a sound that was somewhat akin to a growl, and Marcus immediately backed off. It was clear what he meant when he had said that Noah was the one in charge of this camp.
"But that's not what I want for you," Noah said hurriedly. "God, not for you. This was an accident, you seeing what you did. It does not have to go further than this, especially if you swear not to speak of it."
Stephanie looked at Noah's face in surprise. There was a strange fear there, and after a moment, she realized that it was not a fear for his secret or his people, it was a fear for her.
"You don't want me to get mind wiped," she murmured and he nodded tersely.
"It is a terrible thing to have a blank space where something good once resided," he said bluntly. "I would not want to lose you that way."
"You would trust me with a secret like this?" she asked.
Noah looked torn for a moment, and with a flash of insight, she thought she could understand. If the organization that Noah and Marcus worked for, the Council that they referred to, had trained them up, he would of course think that it was a traitorous thing to go against them in any way.
To her surprise and to her gratitude, he nodded.
"I do," he murmured. "I do trust you. I would stake my life on it."
Noah looked miserable at the idea, and to Stephanie's surprise, it was Marcus who spoke.
"Now do you understand?" he asked, and Noah growled slightly, but he nodded. She wondered what that meant, but then Noah turned to him.
"I'm taking Stephanie back to camp now. Pack up, we're leaving before noon."
"Aye-aye, captain," Marcus said with some amusement, but he didn't say anything else as she and Noah stood to leave.
They walked for most of the way in silence, and then he turned to her. Absently, she noticed that they were standing close to the tree where they had shared their first kiss in the moonlight. God, it was so recent, but so much had changed since then. The very world around her had altered, and she wasn't sure that she knew exactly what was true now.
"I'm sorry to be leaving you," he said, and she was shocked at the genuine regret in his voice. "I don't want to do that."
She looked at him in surprise. In the shade of the trees, in the unsteady shadows of the waving leaves, his shape was indistinct for a moment, as if at any moment he might turn back into that golden lion that she had briefly watched with such awe.
They stared into each other's eyes, and in that moment, Stephanie felt more connected to him than she had while they were locked in a passionate embrace. Without thinking, she reached up to caress his cheek gently. Noah leaned into her touch.
“I don't want to leave you,” he repeated, and she let go of a breath she had been holding. She had wanted to hear those words for a very long time, but it felt so raw that she had to push it away.
“We've only known each other for two days,” she said. “Not even that. I never expected more from you...”
The smile he gave her was slightly pained, and he pulled her into his arms.
“I'm sorry for that,” he growled, kissing her gently. The kiss was sweet, almost chaste, but it still had the effect of lighting something deep within her on fire.
“Why?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light. “Would it have pleased you to hear that I was going to hang on to your memory for years as I kept myself pure for you or something?” Noah pulled back, and this time there was something deadly serious in his gaze.
“This isn't a game, at least it isn’t to me. When we met, Stephanie, I felt something for you, something I had not felt before.”
“When we met?” she asked, her voice strained.
“Yes. I saw you in the jungle, and at first I was worried. I had no idea what a woman was doing there so late, all by herself. I followed you because I was worried. I only intended to shadow you, to protect you, but you made that impossible.”
He bowed his head for a moment, and when he spoke again, there was a rumble in his voice, as if the beast side of him was very near the surface.
“I couldn't leave you alone,” he said. “No matter how foolish it was, I had to make myself known to you. There is something in you that calls to me, Stephanie.”
She found herself nodding mutely. She did understand. She might not have wanted to, but there was something in her that recognized Noah as well. The idea of him leaving wrenched her heart as if it would tear in two, but she had to ignore it.
“What does this mean for us?” she asked. She was a little startled to use the word us. It felt too intimate, too strange for a man that she had known for less than a week, but it was the only word that made any sense in that situation. There was something tying her to Noah, and it would be foolish to deny it.
Noah paused, and then it was as if he had come to a decision.
“This is more information that you have to keep quiet,” he said with a sigh. “Marcus and I are in Tanzania on a mission. There have been reports of an artifact that belongs to the shifter council, one that was believed to be lost hundreds of years ago. Now we believe that we might have found it again.”
She blinked at the explanation, because whatever she had been expecting, it was not that.
“I... Like, you're Indiana Jones?”
A stray smile flickered across Noah's full lips.
“A bit like that, if the artifacts that Indiana Jones recovered were vital to the security of his world, I suppose. This artifact... it is one that cannot fall into enemy hands. We need to retrieve it. Believe me, if this were any less dire, I would call the council and tell them that I was taking myself off the mission, that there were things more important.”
Stephanie couldn't stop herself from nuzzling his hand when he stroked her cheek gently. It was hard to believe that this was all happening, that Noah was saying these things, but a part of her already believed him. She had known that there was something mysterious about him, something profoundly special, when he had first appeared out of the darkness. This only confirmed it.
“I can't. But what I can say is that I will come back for you. I swear. There is something between us that I cannot forsake, that I will not lose, do you understand?”
He gazed down at her with eyes like molten gold, and Stephanie found herself nodding.
“I understand. I hope you return...”
“I will,” he said fiercely.
“But, I've been left before. In the end, there's only me. I thank you for the promise... but I will believe it when I see it.”
The look he gave her was terrible indeed, and she could feel his powerful hands flex where they rested on her shoulders. For a moment, Stephanie wondered if she should be afraid, and then his mouth crashed down on hers.
When Noah kissed her, it did not convince her mind that he would return. However, it felt as if that desperate, wild kiss unlocked something in her body. Her mind resisted, but her body and heart seemed convinced of another truth. His kiss left her reeling, and for a moment, she had to hang on to him, her world spinning wildly around her.
“I will come back for you,” he said softly. Noah brushed a lock of hair away from her forehead. The gesture was unexpectedly tender for a man who could turn into an enormous lion. “Believe me.”
Then he turned and was gone. She saw him step off the trail, and his silence was so absolute, so perfect, that he immediately disappeared. A part of her told herself that she would never see him again, but it felt as if somehow, Noah had lit something inside her, a lamp that would burn until he came back.
Stephanie turned back towards the camp. The moment she set foot in it, there were people running towards her. Things had gotten worse, decisions needed to be made, lives were being lost.
Stephanie took a deep breath, and bit back the instinct to scream. She had no answers, not now. She had little more information than what the rest of the staff did, but she was expected to shoulder the responsibility of saving every life that she could. It was a burden that someone had to take on, but in that moment, a part of her wanted to leave, to go to a life where she could simply be oblivious to the pain in the world.
Then she breathed, and when she reached inside herself, she found a little bit of the peace that Noah had created in her. In his arms, she had found something so beautiful that it soothed her even now.
“All right, people,” she said out loud. “Let's get to work.”